ProPublica joins the Pulitzer élite

Tuesday 13 April 2010 02.46 EDT
First published on Tuesday 13 April 2010 02.46 EDT

Congratulations to ProPublica, the non-profit investigative journalism website, for joining the élite club of Pulitzer prize winners, just two years after starting operations.

The awards, considered the gold standard for American journalism, included four prizes for the Washington Post and three for the New York Times, including one shared with ProPublica for an investigation into whether doctors at a New Orleans hospital, cut off after Hurricane Katrina, hastened some patients' deaths.

It's a reminder that ProPublica is living up to its original, and high-minded, mission statement, about the necessity for "new models … to carry forward some of the great work of journalism in the public interest that is such an integral part of self-government, and thus an important bulwark of our democracy".